Since we have some actual news (although still no premiere date), I figured it's time to start a thread for the eighth and final season of Game of Thrones.

Entertainment Weekly published a large article about filming the season, and while obviously there are no major spoilers, they do provide some nice teases on what to expect, including parallels to the very first episode and the biggest, most epic battle ever.

"Season 8 opens at Winterfell with an episode that contains plenty of callbacks to the show’s pilot. Instead of King Robert’s procession arriving, it’s Daenerys and her army. What follows is a thrilling and tense intermingling of characters — some of whom have never previously met, many who have messy histories — as they all prepare to face the inevitable invasion of the Army of the Dead."

"What’s being filmed here is episode 6, the series finale. Like Harington going into the table read, I don’t know anything about the final season’s storyline. I look around at a meticulously constructed set that I’ve never seen on the show before. Several actors are performing, and I’m stunned: There are characters in the finale that I did not expect. I gradually begin to piece together what has happened in Westeros over the previous five episodes and try not to look like I’m freaking out.

There is absolutely nothing more that can be said about that scene at this time."

About the epic battle:

The drama builds to a confrontation with the Army of the Dead that’s expected to be the most sustained action sequence ever made for television or film. One episode — the same that Benioff and Weiss were concerned about pulling off so many years ago — is wall-to-wall action, courtesy of “Battle of the Bastards” director Miguel Sapochnik.

Last April a crew member revealed that Game of Thrones had wrapped 55 night shoots while filming a battle. Media outlets around the world ran stories saying the final season’s battle took twice as long as the 25-day shoot for season 6’s climactic Battle of the Bastards. This wildly understated what really happened. The 55 nights were only for the battle’s outdoor scenes at the Winterfell set. Filming then moved into the studio, where Sapochnik continued shooting the same battle for weeks after that.

“It’s brutal,” Dinklage says. “It makes the Battle of the Bastards look like a theme park.”

The battle doesn’t have just one focus, either, but rather intercuts between multiple characters involved in their own survival storylines that each feels like its own genre. “Having the largest battle doesn’t sound very exciting — it actually sounds pretty boring,” Benioff says. “Part of our challenge, and really, Miguel’s challenge, is how to keep that compelling… we’ve been building toward this since the very beginning, it’s the living against the dead, and you can’t do that in a 12-minute sequence.”
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It's frustrating we still don't have a premiere date, but the final season does sound like it's going to be very special indeed.

If they ever come out, it will be with a co-author after he's dead. He is far too busy writing 1000 page Westeros history books send developing TV shows.

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I fear you might be right. He seems more interested in writing everything but A Song of Ice and Fire and yet he gets grumpy when people keep asking about The Winds of Winter. I respect that it takes a long time to write, but when he writes 700-plus pages in the first-part of a massive trilogy on history during that time, he shouldn't be surprised when people keep asking "but what about The Winds of Winter?"

With that in mind, I have no interested in Fire & Blood. I love dragons as much as the next person but the 300-year history about the Targaryens just doesn't appeal to me.